Sunday, February 5, 2012

Juke boxes, ooo girl that’s my song!

Youre Imposing your musical views on the world and theres nothing anyone can do about it, you bravely select a barry manilow song, yea copacabana, you went there and then you realize its three plays to a dollar…you choose michael buble and reo speedwagon and you see everyone cringe, but fuck you its my dollar! That’s why I love juke boxes!

So where did it start and whys it called a juke box, please don’t tell me theres some dude named juke…

As it turns out a juke box is the first automatic coin operated machine. Well something like a joke box it was player pianos and those lil machines that sounded like music boxes. “In 1918 Hobart C. Niblack patented an apparatus that automatically changed records, leading to one of the first selective jukeboxes being introduced in 1927 by the Automated Musical Instrument Company, later known as AMI. In 1928, Justus P. Seeburg, who was manufacturing player pianos, combined an electrostatic loudspeaker with a record player that was coin operated, and gave the listener a choice of eight records.” Oooo 8 records! Sooo many choices! Eventually other small improvements were made like the addition of multiple records and the switch to 45’s and better sound quality but it didn’t deviate much from the original idea. Today most jukeboxes are connected to wireless networks which makes the playlists it can hold unlimited and thus making me a happy happy girl.

Interestingly enough there was NOT some dude named juke…lol. “The term "jukebox" came into use in the United States around 1940, apparently derived from the familiar usage "juke joint", derived from the Gullah language used by african americans in the word "juke" or "joog" meaning disorderly, rowdy, or wicked.” And by the way I totally had to look up gullah cause I had no idea what it was turns out they are afro american that live in south carolina/georgia. Bam! Two for one learning in this post!